


i hate the ending myself (but it started with an alright scene)

by butmomilovemyboys



Series: the kids from yesterday [1]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Hurt/Comfort, IT Chapter Two Spoilers, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, M/M, Not IT Chapter Two Compliant, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is a Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21589606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butmomilovemyboys/pseuds/butmomilovemyboys
Summary: “Rich!” Eddie cries, a smile on his lips. “I think I got him! I think I killed him!”Richie can barely move, however much he wants to, but he exhales and gives Eddie a soft smile. Eddie doesn’t hate him, the deadlights were just playing mind games. Good to know. “Ed-” he starts, but there’s a shadow approaching behind Eddie, and Richie’s eyes go wide.~What would have happened if roles had been reversed?
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, The Losers Club & Richie Tozier
Series: the kids from yesterday [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564666
Comments: 2
Kudos: 75





	i hate the ending myself (but it started with an alright scene)

**Author's Note:**

> oh shit. i have never written for it before. whoops. sry everyone i changed the ending hahahaha  
> all seriousness this idea came to me after watching this tiktok: https://vm.tiktok.com/9QPBmF/  
> and then i wrote it lmao

The deadlights didn’t hurt like Richie thought they would. It actually just made him feel  _ wrong,  _ like he was  _ wrong.  _ It was like a parasite, controlling his brain and his body. And the parasite was telling him how  _ wrong  _ he was, how wrong the world he was living in was.  _ You’re a second-rate stand-up comedian who’s been in love with his childhood friend for 27 years. Who are you to be fighting off evil itself? You don’t stand a chance.  _

Maybe he  _ was _ all wrong. Was coming back to Derry a mistake? Or was it destiny? Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe he would have ended up the same way. 

The deadlights must be changing tactics, because the parasite method was over, and now he was crawling with what he guessed was genuine fear. It was  _ eating  _ at him, crushing his soul and his heart. 

_ Trashmouth. Lonely, scared, stupid Trashmouth Tozier.  _

All he could see was every bully pushing him down, every time his father spit at him, every time his mother yanked his ear and threw him in his room, the booing crowds, the bitchy producer meetings...

The Loser’s leaving him. They’ve had enough of his chattering. Eddie glares at him. Eddie hates him. 

That’s the scariest part. 

And suddenly he’s falling flat on his back, his nose bleeding and Eddie fucking Kaspbrak calling his name and staring right down at him. 

“Rich!” Eddie cries, a smile on his lips. “I think I got him! I think I killed him!” 

Richie can barely move, however much he wants to, but he exhales and gives Eddie a soft smile. Eddie doesn’t hate him, the deadlights were just playing mind games. Good to know. “Ed-” he starts, but there’s a shadow approaching behind Eddie, and Richie’s eyes go wide. 

“Eddie!” Richie suddenly finds whatever strength he has left and grabs Eddie by the shoulder. He whips them around so fast he surprises himself, but something is all wrong because Eddie gasps and whispers his name tearfully, and warm blood drips down his chin. He doesn’t actually  _ feel  _ anything, but the sound his chest makes and the way Eddie looks up at him makes him realize that something  _ really _ bad just happened to him. Someone screams, and unless Bill suddenly underwent reverse puberty, it’s Beverly. That stupid fucking clown laughs behind him, but he’s more focused on Eddie, who’s mouth is wide open and who’s eyes have tears in them. 

“Eddie?” Richie whispers, trying not to face the reality of the situation. 

“Richie.” He doesn’t ask his name, he states it. His voice is shaking. Neither one of them talks, they just breath, and watch as blood drips out of Richie’s mouth. 

That’s when Pennywise yanks him across the cavern. And that shit  _ hurts.  _

“Richie!” Eddie calls for him loudly, and Richie slams into the side of the cavern. All of them call for him, actually. Which reminds him; he hates how he forgot what they meant to him. What he meant to them. He tumbles into the crack in the wall, finding himself in a new cavern, staring blankly up at rocks. One hand shakily trails down to his chest, where he winces and shudders a sob at the blood and the guts. Totally not the way he wanted to go out. Not that he actually had a way he  _ wanted  _ to go out, but this certainly was unexpected. 

The first one to come rushing in, to his selfish delight, is Eddie. He’s got that panicked look he has when things just aren’t right, the look he’s been wearing every day since they got back to Derry. 

He rushes to Richie and hoists him up against the rocks, their hands locked together. To Richie’s surprise, neither of them intend on letting go. 

“Something’s not right,” Richie mumbles, wincing at the wound on his chest. 

“Well,  _ no shit!”  _ Eddie yells, “You just got impaled by a spider-clown leg!”

Richie smiles, tasting the blood on his teeth. “God, please write that on my tombstone. That’s kinda badass.”

Eddie pales. “You won’t need a tombstone, bitch.”

_ “Guys!”  _ Ben’s voice rings throughout the cavern as the rest of them enter. “He’s not finished!”

Richie looks at Eddie, who looks between Richie and the others. 

“You have to take down that stupid clown,” Richie mumbles. “He’s fucking relentless.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Eddie says quietly, only Richie being able to hear him. Richie looked quickly over the rest of them, seeing the desperate look in Bill’s eyes and the wild regret in Mike’s. He suddenly realizes: he’s slowing them down. 

“There’s a tunnel!” Ben yells. 

Beverly started talking too, but everything is starting not to sound right, because now it’s far away and muffled. They all start talking about the ritual, and shape inhabiting, and It itself. But not Eddie. Eddie just keeps looking only at him, and Richie can’t help but feel his heart skip a beat because Eddie’s undivided attention is what he’s always wanted. 

_ Now's a good a time as ever,  _ Richie thinks before grabbing Eddie’s shoulder. “Eds, c-can I tell you something?”

Eddie looks at him and smiles. “Of course, man. Anything.”

Richie opens his mouth to say  _ it _ , to say  _ something,  _ but for some reason, he can’t. Instead, he winces and curls in on himself. Stupid chest wound. Ruining the whole mood. 

Eddie just grips his hand tighter with Richie’s. For a moment, it’s just the two of them. He forgets about Pennywise, and the Losers, and even the fact he’s bleeding out on the floor under a cold, dark sewer system. 

“Eddie,” he manages, “You should know-” 

“We have to stop him,” someone says. Richie isn’t paying attention. 

Eddie gives him a look. It’s part guilt, part sadness, part hesitation, and even a little bit of yearning. 

Richie taps Eddie’s cheek. “Go on, stupid. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.” It’s not what he wants to say, but he says it anyway.

“I  _ will  _ come back for you, Tozier,” Eddie responds gently. Richie’s heart breaks a bit when Eddie let’s go. Every single one of them give a look to Richie that’s too much like a goodbye, until it’s just Eddie standing, looking out over the edge. 

“Richie?” He calls softly. He looks back at Richie and smiles. “I know. And me too.”

And then he’s gone. And suddenly Richie is alone. 

“Me too,” Richie whispers, echoing Eddie’s words. “He said ‘me too.’” 

Two things dawn on him in that moment: he’s not part of the final showdown, and Eddie Kaspbrak loves him back. 

Make that three: he’s definitely dying. He’s growing a bit numb to the pain, he’s eyelids are growing heavy, and it’s starting to get a bit hard to breathe. But it sucks that after all this work, he doesn’t get to be out there. He can’t get his revenge for his lost childhood and he can’t watch one of the only things that fills him with absolute  _ dread _ die. He can’t stand with his friends for the final battle. Instead he’s here, bleeding and alone. There’s no jokes to distract himself because he  _ is  _ the joke. He’s the punchline to some corny cosmic joke. 

_ What do you call a dying stand-up comedian who never gets to tell his first and only love how he feels?  _

_ Richie Tozier.  _

Then again, Eddie loves him  _ back.  _ Does that make it worth it? Or does that make it worse? 

So for the first time since Richie can remember, he cries. And Richie  _ never  _ cries. He always jokes instead and blabs off until he forgets why he was upset. He couldn’t do that this time; again, he  _ was _ the joke. 

He cries for his loss of innocence, for all the kids who died before because of It, for Stan, for his loneliness all these years, for his friends who he  _ loved _ , and mostly, in disappointment. Disappointment that him and Eddie would never have the life he wants them to so  _ desperately  _ to have. 

He cries until there’s no tears, just breathless, dry sobs heaving his chest. 

_ This is the end,  _ he thinks,  _ This is the time to go.  _

His friends voices start quieting down, but he doesn’t know if he actually knows that or if his brain is telling him that. 

But he sees Eddie clamor into the cavern, all smiles, and he smiles back. 

“Rich,” Eddie says breathlessly, “Richie, we did it.” 

He comes back over to Richie, their hands interlocking for what only Richie knows to be the last time. “He’s dead.” 

“Hey.” 

“Yeah?” 

And Richie just grins. “Nice going, Eddie Spaghetti.” 

And Richie Tozier expires, looking right at Eddie Kaspbrak, and remembering all the love he had for him before closing his eyes for good. 

~

Ben and Bill end up dragging Eddie out kicking and screaming, 

_ “He was alive! When we left— he was alive!”  _

_ “...Eddie, honey, he’s dead.”  _

_ “No! No, he’s not! Richie!”  _

Bill will mention to Ben later that maybe it would have been easier to carry Richie’s unresponsive body than Eddie’s resistant one, but Ben shoots that idea down by saying Eddie would never truly let Richie go if they hadn’t. None of them would have. 

Beverly will try to talk to Eddie about what happened, but he can’t say. Or he  _ won’t.  _ One of the two. She’ll watch him pack up Richie’s bags and sling them over his shoulder, then shove them into the back of his car. She’ll watch him argue with his wife over the phone, until finally he says:  _ It’s over, Myra. It’s been over.  _ She’ll hug him when he realizes she  _ knows.  _

Mike will hang one of Richie’s posters from one his shows in his office. Every time he’ll look at it, he’ll hear Richie’s voice and laugh and pray that he never forgets it. 

And Eddie will walk down to the bridge, and he’ll spot the faded and R+E in Richie’s hand writing. What Richie never knew, and sadly would never know, was that on the opposite side of the bridge, hidden behind an overgrown bush, was Eddie’s own E+R. He’ll fill them both in, carving slowly and carefully until they’re darker than the rest of the initials on the bridge. 

He won’t really ever get over Richie.

But the rest of the losers will keep on touch, and maybe one day, he’ll no longer feel the guilt and grief in his chest whenever he thinks about him. Instead, it’ll be sweet memories. One day, he’ll move on. 

But for today, he’ll sit on that bridge and think about what could have been and wish it could have been different. 

R+E

E+R. 


End file.
